Monday, June 23, 2008

Man in Gray played their last show on Thursday at the Delancey. I wish I'd seen them play more often in my almost three years here. Met some old friends, made some new ones. Enjoyed the music and the general spirit of revelry. It was a pretty classic ending, too, with a fight breaking out when the sound guy turned off their set for the last encore song because some jack ass NY hard core dude wanted to play.

Anyway, here are, like, THREE(!) pictures to remember the night by. In classic Rachael-mode, I left my camera at home. And when I'm not leaving it at home, I am forgetting to charge the batteries. Eh, taking pictures at shows is annoying anyway. But I borrowed the one from work, so here is Tina and Brian and the really attractive drummer and a shirtless bass player and the other guitarist to round it out:

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

No, it’s not an ecphrasis, just a somewhat complicated and badly thought out subtitle playing off of one of Mission of Burma’s second encore songs from Sunday night. Buuuuuuuuuut it was a long weekend and I am tired. Way back when I set a goal for myself to write a review after every show I went to, and generally, to make it more personally interesting to me (I am the important one here, duh) I want try and add that personal touch every time. But, I am a failure. And a quitter. A failure and a quitter because I have not been doing this. In fact, I have something written up for a show I saw two weeks ago that I haven’t finished because I’ve just been, well, LAZY. Or busy? Busy being lazy? You know that is a legitimate excuse.

But lo, I am attempting to pick up the reins of self-discipline once more, and herald you, my dear reader, (note the singular, as in my dad, *hi dad*) with tales of Sunday’s Mission of Burma show at the Bowery. It being father’s day and all, I called my dad right before the show and complained to him about how I was down with the typical Sunday evening blues, and it was the best pick-me-up conversation I’ve had in awhile. I love talking to my dad about music because he’s so open-minded. I owe most of my musical knowledge (whatever that may consist of) to him, and he always encouraged any of my earlier personal explorations into punk and the local Salinas hardcore scene though it was mostly a departure from his own vast (closets full!) album collection. That being sad, I could easily see the old man at this Mission of Burma show.

The band played two nights in a row, publicizing that the Saturday show would be the entirety of Signals, Calls and Marches and the entirety of Vs. on Sunday. I adore the idea of an experienced band playing an entire album like this. In fact, in my humble (not humble) opinion, it should be the goal of any band or single performer to be able to craft an album that can be performed in this way. I only saw Sunday’s show and I guess the idea behind this mini-tour is that Matador is re-releasing both albums, to which the drummer said “Many thanks to Matador for re-releasing two albums that no one bought the first time around”. Ha.

Very little talking from the band themselves, though the drummer managed to throw in some sort of nerdy quips. He even got his political statement in there: “Mission of Burma survived the Bush years. Now go back to where you came from, asshole!*” (Disclaimer: I don’t believe he actually said “asshole”. Maybe I am projecting). And they definitely ripped it up on stage. I kind of wish I’d gone to Saturday’s show, too. All in all, a really good show, out for two rounds of encores where they played songs from Signals, Signs and Marches to the delight of the crowd (apparently, Saturday, they did a Pere Ubu cover, too). I know I haven’t really described much about the show, but it erased my Sunday evening blues, and isn’t that what music is supposed to do?

Monday, June 02, 2008

Going to see Wire play the South Street Seaport proved to be an interesting experience in nostalgia for me, if I am allowed, at age 26, to feel nostalgia. It mostly had to do with the opening band, Die! Die! Die!, whom I was really excited to see. Die! Die! Die! are a three-piece punk band from New Zealand and their first album, recorded with Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, etc), was released when I was working in the import section at the record store. I wrote a little blurb for the rack and put it up on a listening station and would listen to a few tracks after each shift (I could’ve listen to the whole album really, clocking in around 20 minutes total). It was short, quickly paced punk rock and the tracks were humorously titled, with “Franz (17 Die! Die! Die! Fans can’t be wrong)”, and “Auckland is Burning” being the best. Formulaic, sure, but I liked something about it. They’ve come through New York twice that I know of and I missed them both times, so when I saw they would be opening for Wire I was pleased.

I left work early (finally learning how to do that) and met friends at what has been one of my favorite New York bars since Nathan introduced it to me way back when…a great one for enjoying Anchor Steam before the Seaport shows. I am not going to say what bar it is, for fear that soon all of Manhattan will be heading there, because all of Manhattan reads this web journal. Obviously.

My companions for the evening were there to see Wire, but obliged me in going over early to check out Die! Die! Die! (really I just like typing the name. Trust me, I’m holding back. Waaaaayback). Sadly, the sound was not great (which I attribute to the sound board and the location, not the band). Too much drum, too loud on the vocals. But the energy was all there. The singer launched himself over the barrier and into the crowd, the bass player jumped off an amp. Yeah, I’ve seen that before, but, sometimes, who gives a fuck if it still feels genuine? And it did. The bass player reminded me of my college radio co-host and they sounded exactly like I thought they would: like the punk I listened to in high school. I suppose most third-wave or whatever wave this is all sounds similar. But none of this, for that particular Friday night, was a bad thing. Or maybe I was just in a really good mood.

Wire also provided that nice warm nostalgia feeling, but for a different reason. I never listened to them in high school and truthfully have rarely listened to them at all besides that first album, Pink Flag. But there is something interesting about seeing a hugely influential band, especially when it was 30 years ago that they were hugely influential, play. I am particularly interested in how they present themselves. For example, the guitarist was sort of matronly in all black and the lead singer was respectable in a dark suit, but the bass player was in a beanie and tight black shirt, as if he were ready to hit the slopes on his snowboard despite being obviously, well, “old”. Primarily it means the crowds are much more diverse, from the old dudes that listened to them from day one, to these kids that rolled up as it began to get dark, with their Colt 45s in brown paper bags. They couldn’t have been any older than 18, and they’re pushing people around and starting a mini-pit. Usually I am past the days of being tolerant of people ignorantly taking up my elbowroom (I blame living in New York for this). Except that one of them, perhaps the most obnoxious of all, had a Minor Threat patch on his jeans. And he knew all the words. So instead of being my normal, grumpy self, I was really happy that these 16 or 18 or however old they were kids were listening to music that, for all intents and purposes, is probably dead. Because they reminded me of…me?